Sunday 20 December 2009

Ink marks on a blank page Mon 20th December

There it be, wasn't going to write again until after 'THE' day, but there are one or three things that weigh heavily over the robbi at this moment. Nothing so heavy that you will be sick with angst or want to rise up and dowse one with flames, or maybe you might. Should you be animal lovers, or more to the point , admirers of Rattus norvegicus, then look away .Go no farther.

We all have things that in life we do not mutter about in polite society, or should do, just little pecadilloes about oneself that are best left under the blanket ,to use a metaphor. I am one such, for it are in life that it is my downfall ,some would say, the robbi is a little bit of a softy. To be a softy is not a pecadilloe or something to despise, not at all and possibly when I started to use the p word you came over all hot 'n' bothered like, are we going to get into the good stuff now, a la bold & the beautiful et al. The robbi cries in movies ,at weddings/watching some plays/reading great poetry/listening to good music at toddlers who the cutest things and when I slip off the pedals of my bike to hit the cross bar.

Oh I feel that I am rambling but shall endeavour to make a point, which is.

That I live in the suburbs of a small city(1.8mill) in an newish house, which is opposite a park that has a river running through. Said river is about 50 yards from my front door. The house itself is reasonably large and on a flat block slightly elevated up from the road that runs in front. The block size is 925 sq metres and has a large front garden composed of native plants bisected by a dry creek (of river pebbles). The back has a side garden of native plants and a pond, a raised herb bed two citrus trees,bay tree,plum ,two nectarine,one apricot,one peach and a 5thous gall rain water tank. The fruit trees are espaliered onto frames which contain within a chicken house complete with two chickens. The whole is complimented by various gates /paths/a shed/compost bins and the minutae of living. There are several pieces of statuary of mine scattered about with a totem pole that I made (carved) for my grandchildren,now 4 off.Along the side of the house is a pergola that extends over the pond. The pond was really a mistake as I dug it in a fit of pique one day when upset with Hortense, one of those projects that one does in a flurry of bad temper and much sweat. I say mistake as after installing said pond it are somewhat of a chore to maintain, also to keep the water from growing masses of algae come summer I had to build a pergola over it. That is also why one should never do in fits of pique, it always invariably blows back in your face. That we are well pleased with the garden as a whole is a comfort, therefore the pique never gets a mention. To save the grandchildren from floating in the pond I have placed temporary pieces of mesh over it, said mesh somewhat removes the esthetic effect that pond lends to the ambience of the place but it do stop little people from drowning.

The above is not meant to convey to you a sense that the robbi is a landscaper extreme, or the most diligent of gardeners nor anything else that springs to your collective mind(s), merely though to illustrate perhaps a small point of the robbi psyche,ie softy.
For the thing is y'see if you have fruit trees in your back garden in OZ you will have rodents who visit when the fruit is ripening and or falling to the ground , ripe. my guess is that in other climes it are the very same, but although I have lived amongst others in different cities/countries I have only ever grown fruit here.I have read in various tomes too that when in a city one is only ever no more thant ten feet from a rat, two or four legged I have no idea.
Rats are not my favourite persons, either variety, the human or other.From herein this gets amight squeamish to recite, so I shall be as brief as I can. We have ascertained several facts, the growing of fruit attracts rodents, they spoil the fruit, I don't like them, the robbi is a softy. So I saw that rats persons were eating my glorious peaches, I purchase bait,they ate the bait. So much so did they eat the bait I assumed that either the rat(s) actually were getting fat on my bait or I was harbouring several packs of the beasts. I purchased rat cage, the gentleman selling the cage told me that it would catch a rat, to dispose of said rat I was place rat cage into a large bucket of water and proceed to instruct said rat into the art of swimming underwater without a snorkel or any other method of gaining air with which to breath. Lo, the very first time I set rat cage up I caught a very fine, large specie of Rattus norvegicus. Bucket of water at the ready I proceed with swimming lesson uno. Alas the cage was just exactly the same height as the bucket resulting in rat being able to tread water and just keep its little pink snout above the water line.Dilemma, what to do, grab the hose turn water tap to max and force snout under the water.
Damn but that little bugger could turn a nifty somersault or three I can tell you, also in the course of somersaulting rat was taking deep breaths. Eventually though the force of water and the iron will of the robbi caused rat to ingest enough so as to sink gracefully down, but I swear to you with such a look of "help me please' on its face I found it hard to get t sleep that very night.

There you have the saga of robbi who has had to go back to the laying of baits as he cannot face having to endure giving more underwater swimming lessons.Oh do not mutter amongst yourselves that I should just get a deeper bucket, as it is each time I walk past that bucket I can still see rat turning a soulful eye toward me, I swear that one arm was raised in a farewell gesture as it breathed in the last mouthful of H2o.

I leave you with a small pictorial of the robbi garden, do not judge me too harshly, a man sometimes has to do that which he thinks a man must do.

Thursday 17 December 2009

ink marks on a blank page Fri 18th Dec

Well 'tis sort of getting around to that time again, seems as though 'it' starts around October these days.Here that is just about the case ,most stores have some sort of bauble or three up and running, by mid November all the malls seem to be echoing to the sound of sleigh bells and the like. Might be just me being an old curmudgeonly type but that , sleighs/snow, really irritates the life out of me, we have heaps of snow here but in OUR winter. Life in OZ December is mostly about the beach ,surf, sand and cricket. yes I know there are lots of folk here who at one time came from a place where there is snow in December, all my folk did too, but for everything there is a season.This is also the dead season for TV and radio here in OZ, nothing but repeats or fourth rate shows on all channels, radio fares no better as even the public broadcaster we listen to on our brand new digital radio has its second string announcers on. To make matters worse the Copenhagen conference is on everything , what a load of toss that is as well. Our oppostion party here would not pass the prime Ministers Emission Trading scheme before he went to the conference, and a jolly good thing too.
Can anyone tell me what an Emission Trading scheme will do to stop pollution? The way I understand it works is like this; company A is a steel mill, they are heavy polluters so for each tonne of carbon they emit they will pay a levy.That money goes to the Government of the day.But how does that stop pollution?? They way I see it if the steel company has to make steel to stay in business then they will make carbon, let's say they make a hundred tonnes of carbon a week to make 5 thousand tons of steel so that they remain in profit. That carbon makes them polluters, so they pay a tax, the Gov gets the money(some middlemen get to cream off a bit too).They still have to make that hundred tonnes of carbon to make their weekly total of steel so that they can employ people and make a profit, so they still send up into the atmosphere that hundred tonnes of carbon, all that will happen is because they have to pay a carbon tax their steel will be more expensive for the consumer. The consumer will then eventually say bugger that dear steel from here,I will go buy my steel from India or China or perhaps Brazil as they are developing countries and don't have a carbon tax.
Thwe robbi is not a climate change denier, I freely admit that we as people have sent great plumes of pollution into the atmosphere, one of the reasons I left the farm was the seasons began changing quite rapidly and where we used to get a large crop of one type ready before Christmas it became harder as our December got colder and the bees weren't around to pollinate. I do believe that the Earth is continually evolving and changing, what was weather patterns fifty years ago will not be a pattern today, man has also had an effect on that pattern, but not to the degree that AL Gore would have us believe.The fossil record bears that hypothesis out as any geologist will be able to show.73 thousand years ago there was an earthquake and a volcanic eruption which changed the ecology of most of India, these cataclysmic events are happening all the time as each volcanic eruption spews many millions of tonnes of dust and ash into the atmosphere ,mixed in with that is large quantities of Sulphur. When those Sulphur particles mix with the ice in the upper stratosphere a chemical reaction takes place , the resultant particle formulation stays in the stratosphere for a long time and creates a warming blanket effect for many months.That warming also speeds along climate change over the area that is covered by the eruption, so man alone is not all culpable .
The following I wrote in another forum, the tenet of that was what I was going to write for this blog, I just got carried away with the hot air minutae of Copenhagen. (Breaking news from Copenhagen)The developing countries want us 'rich' nations to stump up $110 BILLION dollars to give to them, just how many AK47's will that lot buy ??? Bugger that I say, if they want money sure give it them, just make SURE that every last cent gets spent of fixing up their pollution and not buying Cadillacs and tanks for the ruling junta. Just an aside, I do believe that most of the really good fairy stories have been written in Copenhagen well before this summit.

Here we are again, the month of months. How many of us are saying that it seemed like only yesterday that it was Christmas '08. Well in terms of the age of Earth it was only a blink away. I tend to think along those lines because, as y'all know, I am a few years older than most of you.That doesn't make me some sort of troglodyte or one given to crusty sayings a la morgan freeman whilst swinging on a porch seat. Oh no, I give out crusty sayings porch seat or not, ten a-penny, or if you care to listen long enough they come free. I grew up reading people like James Thurber, chuckling over cartoons by him and Charles Addams, writings of them,S.J. Perelman and Robert Benchley. These writers and others of their ilk wrote and cartooned for the New Yorker and from the earliest of my reading memory I read their words and studied every line of their cartoons. Therefore I have an arsenal pf pith with which to assail your ears.As my children are oft heard to say"You do talk a lot of pith too" Thurber was oft fond of pillorying Christmas as a sop to overspending and indulging even before it became a blood sport to do so. We all like to make fun of Christmas in some form though don't we? One cannot walk through a shopping mall in mid November without hearing faint strains of Silent Night. Everywhere you go here there are cards depicting sleighs /holly/ reindeer/pine trees etc none of which we have or are endemic to this country at this time of year.We do have snow ,lots of it as well, but at the right time when it is OUR winter. Don't misunderstand I, the robbi loves Christmas, as it are I have never grown up and just can't sleep on the 24th so I get up early to see just what Santa has brought me. I make sure mother Christmas bakes two Christmas cakes so we can scoff a piece each night until the DAY, oh delight of delights.Then on the day I eat so much that moving is out of the question so have to have a BIG sleep after lunch. Do I hear some of you muttering that robbi has entirely missed the actual import of Christmas, well before you do I must tell you that I am agnostic and it is my understanding that the celebration really was a pagan one at that before it was hi-jacked ,that is. Don't let's argue anyway, this is the time to forgive etc and be jolly tra-la-lah. So I will take this time to WISH you ALL, the compliments for the time that it be,.MAY YOU LIVE LONG AND PROSPER xxxxrobbi
No Hortense I haven't forgotten your contribution for the year, not only the year little one, my whole life .'Tis true Horty, I owe you my all. Now don't blush girl, 'tis all that life is, just how all unfolds,and that's the way of it. Next year come 30 January will be the 45th, I like that,has a grand ring ,can't wait for the 55th though,now that will be a day.xxxxxxxxxxxxxxrob

Wednesday 25 November 2009

ink marks on a blank page Thurs 26th Nov

The state of South Australia where I live, is about the size of Texas in the US but the population numbers only just on 2 million. We are in Australia governed in the Westminster system as it is practised in the UK. That being so for the actual governance there is a central Federal government, each State has its own Premier, having the same powers and gravitas as a US Governor, who is responsible to a two tier system of state politics within that state. For those that are confused that a country with only 22mill people would want to have so many politicians then there can only be one answer, we want our liars and cheats where we can see them !
Seriously, as one who has been in politics I do understand that most politicians do the job for the good of the people, some are bent , some are duplicit, most are very hard working doing a thankless job that has a high burn-out rate. Modern politics though has become the PR persons paradise, once I was a fan of the UK leader Tony Blair but soon realised that his was a government of polished spin and no substance. The local chap who runs this state is a personal friend of Mr. Blair and has shaped his Government in the same mould. If asked a direct question there is no minister of his Government that will come out and give a direct answer. When asked why there were people fainting on the new trams (it was because the air-con system didn't work) the Minister for Transport said" They should be wearing less clothing", in winter yet? You get the picture don't you. By this you might be forgiven for thinking that I am not a fan of this particular Government, no I'm not, and having been a member of the political party concerned it leaves a bad taste in my mouth that this is the way we are governed. I write this because our Premier has become embroiled in a scandal that although will not cause him to resign, it is of such a poisonous nature that at some time something must be done, if not to bring down his Government then to arrest the amount of spin on every subject. This then is the background;

When the present Premier was the leader of the opposition (some 10yrs ago) he befriended a young ( married) waitress who worked in the Parliament dining rooms, he at that time was single, divorced, but was in a close relationship with a lady who eventually became his wife. He formed, in his words, a close, flirty, sharing confidences warm friendship with this waitress, so much so that when her sister visited from the US he took them both on a guided tour around Parliament house and served them coffee in his private office. He is about 18 yrs older than this lady(the waitress) and is a charming erudite confident man of the world with of course the showmanship and carisma of the consumate politican that he is. She was (is) a young lass who had been married at 17 (pregnant) , then whisked off to Australia by her husband who apparently did not get on with his US in-laws.
Our politican became Premier some 8yrs ago, until 2006 kept up a very close warm friendship with this waitress, who is by the way a very attractive intelligent blonde woman.

The reason this warm friendship stopped in '06 became obvious last week when the young waitress went on local television claiming that this man (Premier) had an ongoing sexual relationship with her from the time they first became friends until 2006 when her husband found out about the affair and seperated from (her) his wife. They have since divorced.
During her television appearances she came across as completely plausible and honest, expressing shame and remorse for her conduct and behaviour.That she was paid for this interview is to me of no consequence as she is a single mother with mouths to feed with children still at school( her eldest is 15).
What has transpired since these revelations came out is nothing short of shameful. The Government has rallied behind their man and have portrayed this lady as some sort of two headed monster. Yes it does take two for something like this to take place, guilt must be shared though and this chap has done nothing to carry any of the burden. He continually says that she must be having a hard time in her life, alluding I think that she must be deranged. The funny thing though he has ruled out (catergorically) suing her. Strange that don't you think, if she was making up lies then the first thing he should do would be to have her in court so he could show the world what an honest man he was.What erks me is how all of his Government,including the ladies in it, are trying to blacken her name and cast doubts on her veracity and mental state.

To me it matters not that he and the lady had sex many times or even once, what concerns me is that this man and his PR team are trying to gloss over the fact that a Premier had a warm, sexy, flirty in confidence, friendship with a much younger married,waitress. The issue here I believe is that a young naive woman would be overawed by an older powerful man of the world, so much so she would forget the responsibilities of married life to be carried into a heady affair with him and to heck with the humdrum of normality.
The gravitas of this mans position in life surely must count against him having more than a "hello , nice day" type of connection with his waitress, when in fact he was texting her many times a day with messages of an extreme personal nature.
I must state again that for me the issue is not that he had sex with her, it is however that he denies it, and to my thinking he used his position and carisma to seduce an innocent naive young woman into an affair from which she had only one route, being divorced by her husband.


You do concur Hortense do you not? no Horty old girl we don't do drawing and quartering anymore,sometimes more is the pity I think. Gravitas is a curly thing old girl, there are moments that I wish this lady has been of a more worldly ilk where she could have this chappie by them. Yes we will go see that new Coen Bros movie this Friday, and Cocolat.....of course m'dear, of course.

Tuesday 17 November 2009

ink marks on a blank page Wed 18th Nov

Took some time out of my busy schedule (har har) to clean out this room I inhabit. You will see in the pics just what I mean by inhabit. I mean there is stuff in here that if suddenly the whole was wrapped in plastic and sealed for 300 or so years forensic archeologists of that time would have field day. Can't you just imagine what passes for the Discovery channel for 2309 might construct,"here we have the abode of the lesser maned robbi, note the plethora of detritus that this creature was fond of and surrounded itself with" "Objects of arcane interest only to the initiates of some bizarre sect, objects that to the normal person of that era would hold no significance" "we can only conject as to what rituals were carried out in this room"
You get the point? I do collect some wierd loot, then tend to keep it close by forever.
So, a clean out of some degree was deemed timely. Not that I got very far, oh I tidied up some drawers on the desk, made space for the new camera bag on a shelf and sorted out some books, but then I discovered three boxes of photos from my childhood and early days ( before digital).

Robbi the magpie had a field day! I went through every photo pack and loose snaps that were there, took me two full on days. By the time I had looked at how life was ,gee didn't she look sweet in that one, and, he really hasn't changed all that much even now, I was a gibbering pool of "where has LIFE gone". Then it was reflection time, believe me that was cathartic and I realised that I do bang on in this forum and others about change a lot. Because that is how a life is made up, we change, circumstance /wealth, jobs/voting patterns/how we read and what/houses , gardens/routines/ cars/dress/likes-dislikes/music and opinions. I began to wonder about those folk who don't appear to change, some whose opinions are the same now that they were 30 years ago. Leaders in politics, union movements, civil servants,lawyers -judges. your neighbour who voted for Genghis Khan and still follows that dictum, the dogmatic folk we all know and sometimes loathe. We aren't of course, we follow our noses and vote with our feet, do we not?
Perhaps I do, sometimes, when it is necessary or a person I admire greatly comes up with a new direction. That I have effected great change in my life is a given, on looking back as I did( when clearing the cobwebs) change of a major nature appears in my life about every ten years. I then seem to lurch forward in the general direction of up, or going forward at this point in time if I were an MBA. Am I proud of my life, guess that I am somewhat, prejudices I have but few, give when I can, stand for the national anthem, as well as for old( and young) ladies.
The following I wrote yesterday in another forum, it was also as a direct result of my looking back into the future.
how sweet it is I don't suppose that most of you know / remember where that phrase , how sweet it is, came from.Some of you do, good. Well for those that don't it is from the days of black and white TV and a show called the 'Honeymooners' starring Jackie Gleason. I first saw this when I was in the navy, as on ships of the USN most mess decks had at least one TV set. The "How sweet it is' line is a reference to life as the whole show was in fact a metaphor for just that. For an Australian at that time to see first hand ,immediately actually, an American show which portrayed life as it really was for some in the States, was a cathartic experience. We watched Hollywood films,read US magazines and hung off the every word of the US music industry.The Honeymooners was none of that, they had menial jobs and lived in very mediocre housing, but were in the most part ,happy and at peace with their lot. The show always ended up-beat and full of hope with Gleason slapping his thigh and saying "Well there you go, how sweet it is' That is what he was saying, how life really is sweet, family and the future really mean something, how it really doesn't matter what you do, as long as you do, and do it to the best of your ability Sure, it was TV, not real. When I talked to the American sailors I understood that this was their lives, most of then anyway, in their own small way they were all Gleason's and that was one reason the US is such a great country , then, and now. The picture I'm posting in no way represents much to do with America at the time of the Honeymooners, but is a pic I found in some old files from when we lived in the UK. The kids aren't ours, we just borrowed them for the day, but it is a time that for me was the start of my journey of understanding of where I was in life, and the Honeymoon is still happening, how sweet it is.

As a postcript the young lass in the picture is now 30 and an MBA, the young chap is mid thirties and an exec with a major cell phone company, the place was Warwick castle (UK) and I still have that shirt and jacket( what change?)

Yes Hortense it were a couple of intense days going through those photos, much ado about lots . You change Horty, all the time, but always for the better,but there again you started from a pretty good base too, whereas I was a naughty boy from way back. Great isn't it, what do I mean? life old girl just that .The pursuit of it ,yes indeed Horty and Gelato at Cocolat too, that always is part of the equation is it not. And "How sweet it is", you make it so Horty old girl.

Monday 2 November 2009

ink marks on a blank page Tues Nov 3rd

This has been a lively few weeks for me myself and I. Driving a thousand kms to visit my daughter isn't such a big deal, that is the part I enjoy. Much as we love our daughter, son-in-law and grandchild there really is no place like ones own bed. Oft I ask myself is it my age? am I so set in my curmudgeonally ways that having to be in someone elses house makes my good nature suddenly evaporate.Their house is vast, so we don't trip over each other, but they don't watch our TV shows, and once the babe goes to bed at 8pm the TV gets turned down to whisper, so if the phone rings or he wants to read the paper and pass comments on the days politics to her, the TV watchers have to lip read.
Then of course having a very lively 2yr old all day does get a little tiring, plus getting up to go for a walk is an exercise in logistics. Two dogs,one grandaughter,a pram with assorted toys that she cannot do without, then the last minute drama because she really wanted Mr Squeaky to come too. She is rather a darling though, no tantrums, just a plaintive cry or three. There were plenty of times when I wondered just how we did all that with our own, and managed careers and a house/garden. Both us us worked in a field where we did shift work, so the children, who were 7yrs apart in age always had a parent about.

Those were of course simpler times ,less pressure and seemed so much friendlier, so we just sailed through regardless.

People have ,it seems to me, higher expectations in this era. We built our first house just after getting married, couldn't afford a bedroom setting except for the frame and mattress, so for the first couple of years the bed was resting on bricks instead of a proper base. Curtains for the kitchen and dining room were actually left over check material from making her uniforms.That house did us for just on ten years, then we moved up to the farm.
By that time we had become much more finacially stable, had no mortgage, thus were able to indulge ourselves in a style that was more suited to my pretensions of grandeur. I think that when we started to travel widely, our expectations of wanting to live in a certain way, just for ourselves, instead of how convention would have us live, began to take hold. Each time we went away I would say on return, I want to live there, we never did though. But we did change the farm-house completely three times in the 24 years we lived there. The time( year of '97) we spent in that apartment in Paris was perhaps the turning point and on returning from there we decided to sell the farm sooner than later and build a new house from scratch. The house that we built in the little country village was perched high on a hill and had a panoramic view over hills studded with cows and sheep.Because it was on a hill I built a sunken garden along one side, glass walls gave an uninterrupted view over the tops of trees into a valley.Why did we leave there after only 3yrs?. The drive into the city each day was getting monotonous, dangerous as the village got bigger which made for more cars on the road. The village school went from 46 students when we moved there to 132 within three yrs, and no, we didn't cause the exposion of little folk.
Funny how the best laid plans of mice and men 'gang awa', when we made plans to sell that house we had another property in a nice suburb that was rented out, the property here(where we now live) had a rather dated late 60's house. So, we would knock the house down which stood on this block and build new,sell the new house that we now lived in and the rented place. Of course the moment all that was decided the bottom dropped out of the housing market. There was no trouble getting finance for the new build so throwing caution to the winds and blowing what cash we had, full speed ahead,damn the consequences. All worked out in the end, somehow.

So here we are Hortense, and have been this 8 almost 9 yrs too, in the normality of life that is Adelaide 2009 ( and prior), a place that we don't like leaving but do so every chance we can. If that leaves anyone confused it does I as well,but that is the short of ,the essence of how we are as folk.did I hear someone say odd? you could be correct, but we love travel, not the going but the being .Perhaps what I love the most Horty old girl is the coming home bit,then the bragging to all and sundry about the sights we have seen. I still say from each place we go,"gee I want to live there". Hortense perhaps I shall post up some pics of that garden I made in the house on the hill, funny I should hark back to that, although it was pretty special were it not? Our son, who is 43, often drives past the old place where he grew up, our first home, and always refers to it as "the best place". Must be some truth in the old saying then about heart and hearth. Also there are some pictures of the great ocean road from the trip back last week,that I took with my all singing all dancing new camera, but none of the most delightful Cocolat experience we had Friday, YUMMO!!

Monday 5 October 2009

ink marks on a blank page Monday 5th Oct

This is just a quick write as I'm getting ready for a trip. I am a hopeless packer, as one who travels a reasonable amount you might think that I should have learnt the art of packing by now, not so. When I was in the Navy it behooved one to travel light, two dress uniforms two work ones and numerous shirts etc /undies/socks/one pr boots/one shoes/flip-flops. We used to roll everything up in tight little sausages then pop them into a hold-all, and it did. After leaving the Navy all my packing sense got left behind for someone else, the Robbi now needs a furniture truck to go downtown for the day.Perhaps it is the babyblues but in all my travels overseas I have never had to pay excess baggage. One trip back from the UK I was able to bring back a bicycle that I had bought in Southampton as cabin baggage.Still don't know how I managed that, but I did, the bike and I ride around the park as often as we can.
Back to packing, that onerous task of which I am not overly fond, been okay though with moving house and at that I became highly organised. perhpas travel isn't the same cathartic extravaganza that moving house is, as you know very well you will be coming back to that which you are leaving. Food for thought actually and one I shall pursue amongst persons of my aquaint.

Life here at chez robbi is at times , to put it mildly, bland. That is nothing much of any real note passes through the front door, to that of course I must add ,'tis the way I likes it.
For more years than is natural the robbi very existence was one long harrowing tale after another, the highs /lows graph resembled something like the latest Global meltdown chart. Strangely enough I/we preferred living that way, both of us worked in hospitals so the adrenalin rush was a constant, also most of the friends that you pick up along the way were in that field as well, all grist for the mill. Now in retirement I don't miss the patients at all, or the rush, just the people that I worked with plus the satisfaction that was at the end of the day knowing I had done my best. That I loved my job was a bonus, the life I have now is just as fulfilling, grandchildren et al.

Indeed Hortense we were busy busy, were we not? You like me being retired, that isn't what you say when you have to go to your stint at the Hospital. Grumble about it you do mostly, but funnily never when you look up your salary. No Horty I never get tired of seeing the $ there either, long may you grumble yet dash off early to the place. That is something I am puzzled about, why you grumble so yet always get there at least half hour early.Oh, you like being able to read all the notes in peace?, good for you then . Great little movie you dragged me off to, Julie & Julia. I actually don't like Meryl Streep (as an actress) at all yet I loved her in that. You liked the Cocolat after too, yes I know I licked the bowl clean, it was yummo. Sure, I will say goodbye to the folks for you as well Horty, it is only for a few weeks, not long.Okay, okay, I'll finish packing tonight.

Monday 14 September 2009

ink marks on a blank page tues 15th Sept.

Is it that time/date I mumble? of course it is you numpty.For one thing I'm not Rip Van Winkle , yes I do love my bed . But of course the reference here is to the passage of time vis a vis how swiftly your (mine) children grow up and age before your very eyes, whilst of course you don't. This past weekend I have spent ferrying my daughter around to various venues as she flew home for a class re-union (20 year) from her school , daughter is 36, married and has 1 & 7/8ths children.
Saturday the 26th; Oh there I am, no I didn't sleep a whole week and a bit in. I got really really busy and just lost all enthusiasm for anything much other than trying to stay sane. We have had the grandaughters for two weeks and also the next two as well. as their mid term hols start monday.Their mother had to fill in for someone at her office so they got dropped off in the morning, I drove them to school then picked them up and brought them home here after school.These are two delightful little girls,mostly, not really much trouble, sometimes, but it is rather wearing . One is so conscious of the fact that YOU are responsible, heck I am never resposible, but looking after some one elses brood is daunting. which is why I haven't felt like attacking the keyboard for anything other than few mails.
Getting back to the opening bit about daughter flying in for her class re-union. Her friends had , as she has, physically changed.They are all about 36+ and have varying jobs from running a school in New York/Chartered Accountant/International Banker/Engineer/Senior Political Journalist/Prosecutor et al including motherhood, so they are a well rounded lot. As personalities and individuals they have not changed a jot.We lived on the farm in those days and her friends loved coming up to there on weekends and holidays, apart from lots of school trips and assorted functions I ferried them around the city for years and got to know who they were really well.For the latter few years of her school life I also had the luxury of being retired, I had decided at 42 that I had enough to live well and my g(o)od lady person was well ensconced at her country Hospital so I finished my daily toil and took on being daughters taxi. In reality it wasn't that simple, as I came home from work one evening my wife looked at me and said "you look 62 not coming up 42, this job is killing you, we have enough, finish up", so I did.
But seeing those super kids grown up,some with families, some starting family, then to know that they were the same people in their hearts and minds after 20yrs, was something wonderful.
We bless the day that the decision was made to send her to that partyicular school, it wasn't always a bed of roses ( for us) but the end result was well worth the effort. The physical effort just getting to school was bad enough as it meant for her three hours on a bus each day, the money was easy come stuff, but the logistics of transport and then when she eventually went into senior school with odd lesson times ,trips into art galleries etc, shock horror . When she eventually came of age to get her driving license I actually breathed a sigh of relief, tempered with a hefty dose of anxiety when she failed her first test. She passed the next test easily,just nerves the initial one, afterward we were both on life support whenever she took her car out.

Yes Horty I do know you do most of the looking after the grandkids, and yes I am an irascible old bugger at times and get short with the youngest one.But fings is fings old girl and if she wants me to teach her to play the piano then she has to be taught the right way, which is my way, not hers.They are little sweethearts and yes I will take them to Cocolat in the holidays. Yes Hortense you will get an invite too , can't have the chief cook missing out now can we.Pity that lovely little film we saw on the weekend was so far from Cocolat, I fancied a spot of gelato, you did too? well I never, you should have said, lets go Tuesday eh?

Tuesday 1 September 2009

ink marks on a blank page wednesday 2nd Sept

We have a commercial here in OZ that uses ,and don't hang any labels on one please, dozens of very attractive young Australians singing as a lovely choir a song that is at the very worst a lovely patriotic tearjerker and at best a great plug for multi-cultural Australia. They sing this ditty in some of the most breathtakingly beautiful spots we have and are all just the sweetest bunch of kids you could wish for. The thing starts with what looks to be about 75 of these kids in some absolutely remote wild location on a drop dead gorgeous day singing ,and the first words are" we are one , we are many, we are..we are Australian etc etc" This is actually an add for Qantas our national airline, you know the one Dustin Hoffman refers to in the movie 'rain man',damn fine movie that was too. I digress but really there are two points I would like to make, one is of course about multicultural OZ and the other is movies, of which I am a fan of (both actually). I do like film that ties itself to a particular genre, deep film noir is not my thing but films that I prefer have to have a solid base,one that is recognisable so that the viewer can immediately identify with the script.As in ,hello I'm watching a college sports jock(comedy) flick here so shall exit by the first door ,and quickly. In saying that I thought 'planes ,trains and automobiles' was one of the funniest(sad & predictable) films I have seen. As a young child growing up in a far country town I was much influenced by film.We ,our little gang of scruffy summer kids, would go to the saturday matinee and then on the way back would re-live the feature,scene by scene. There was always a fight as to who would be either the Phantom/Superman or Hopalong Cassidy, but the animosity only ever lasted minutes.




Can I then be forgiven in the way I go to a film then get into it so deep actually want that to be the way I live life, normally lasts 5 minutes only then reality sets in. Surely just a hangover from my years of matinees .That I never saw Forest Gump is possibly a good thing,dontcha know,'cos I really don't think life is a box of chocolates. Some of the movies that really did make an impression on me were,lost weekend/ rebel without a cause/the wild one/blackboard jungle/on the waterfront/streetcar named desire/to kill a mocking bird/ catch 22 (the book was better)/the road warrior/from here to eternity/pulp fiction/the thing/all star wars/lord of the rings/star trek(all)/blade runner/all the harry potter(they equal the books)giant/east of eden/drive he said/lantana/10 canoes/the tracker/ japanese story/priscilla/muriel's wedding/pride and prejudice/bridget jones/4 weddings/planes trains and automobilesnanny mcphee and possibly a 100 more.


The two movies I was in,the bit part on TV you can wipe off the face of the earth, that I have a copy of the 1st movie is only down to my wonderful wife who purloined one from 20th century fox (may she be forgiven), hired a cinema and invited family /friends in for my 60th, yes it was a complete surprise, for all I think. I do not resile from the fact that I loved it,was watching the movie again an earth shattering moment for me ,no it wasn't, re-l(o)iving the memory was though. The memory is what this about isn't it? we see a film that hits a chord that provokes a memory that brings an emotion that creates a link, so the chain goes on. We give that movie a mental tick for changing our lives for just an instant. Does that mean we want to change ourselves to fit the premise of the screen-play, no. If that were the case the first film I flagged, lost weekend (ray milland), might have stopped me becoming an alcoholic, it didn't ,and I did. That I thought about scenes from the movie at times , yes I did, so there must be a residual effect somewhere . I rode in a motorcycle gang like Brando, but I was riding with them before the movie, played in a rock and roll band too and I know that the reason I did that was because of movies, heck, band members got ALL the chicks. Did I want to be JAMES DEAN , oh surely so.


Yes Hortense I know that in being James Dean I failed miserably, try that I did though. We all danced to the tune at some time or other did we not Horty? One of the great rock and roll songs of ALL time came from the pen of Matt Taylor, he of the band Chain. it goes summat like this...1,2,3,...4 "I remember when I was young, the world had just begun..and I was Happy, I think about it ALL the time, h...e..y" Just Google that up on youtube Horty,that will take you back to the place we met, you surely do remember that smokey club, the Sunday night the handsome young james dean look alike fell off the stage into your life? I see a small blush there Hortense, I must be on the right path. Must say though you do take me to some odd films these days. Quentin Tarantino must have seen some very different film on his saturday matinees if Inglorious Basterds is a yardstick, we did enjoy it though, mostly. I myself pass on the gore.

Saturday 22 August 2009

ink marks on a blank page Sat 22nd August

For us here in the Antipodes Spring, and all its renewables is just around the corner. August,for me, is always a profound month,details of which I shall not bore you with except to add that it concerns the 28th and 1972. As a result some Augusts become watersheds of agendas,the setting of , at times completions of. I'm talking about leap forwards, change, moving on and all that entails. That I do so at this time is not through some mystical force of habit but is in part due to how everything else is changing around me. This year I feel is going to be special,there is such an energy about, not just in my garden but in the park opposite and in Nature per se. I noted earlier this year that the parrots and lorikeets had outstanding colour in their coats . The year forward has borne that out , we have had good rains with the prospect of a nice folllow up lot to come. Looking out of the window at breakfast this morning,I saw a group of Adelaide Eastern Rosellas fly past to land in the large gums across the road,there to feed.Their coats were so brightly coloured in an almost luminescent green the morning sun glinted off them. My fruit trees out in back have got blossom on, the buzzy bees are even at this early hour are working hard.So, what do you think,let's go get 'em , aye....move on ,change, up and at life big time....just do it ! IT"S TIME The picture I post is from the front seat of my car as it barrells along the Calder Highway (Victoria) ,note the ice in the ditch to picture left,it was early morning and damn cold. Driving towards something new is always for me a metaphor for change, as this trip was, so shall it be done.

Done it has been.You might have guessed that the above was written some days ago, or perhaps it really doesn't matter as this write is for the here and now, this instant,forthwith etc etc. I once participated in a judgement where the presiding Judge made an order forthwith,lovely word that, resonates with not only a natural sound of deliberation but one of finality coupled with great purpose. Back to the object in hand, it is so that I as an individual have done some nice things,some good things,one or three really great things and some not so very nice things. Of the not so very nice that I speak about at this moment. Refer to November 1972, after the events of August of that year, I resolved that the not so very nice things should be expunged from the slate of the robbi life.That is all the folk that had been wronged at my hand would be contacted by all and any means, and properly apologised to, asked forgiveness for and/or if possible absolution. Over much time ,lots of effort, all the addresses,phone numbers etc etc were laid before me so I bent to the task. We aren't talking about hundreds here, there were to my memory about 15, no more than that. Really though 15 is enough isn't it?
Did my thing over about a week, two rang me as they had been rung by another ,saying not to worry I can't remember you anyway. But have a guess just how many did care or want to get me to say 'Mea Culpa' ? Right, you have it in one, not one person actually cared less. This of course had me in a quandry, did I matter so little that even my boorish ways went unnoticed, was I so insignificant that even peeing into Jane's tuba in a drunken stupor mattered naught? Was the night I spent locked in Christine's loo because I couldn't find my way out causing the rest of the guests to use the bushes outside whilst I slept in the bath oblivious, was that not a hanging offence? Perhaps not, it may be if course that these good folk saw the mirth in the situations described , chuckle mightily over the years , then turn them into amusing dinner anectdotes to amaze their collective A list friends. All that did leave me a trifle deflated, not dispirited mind, just a wee bit flat.( no pun intended). That this exercise is not repeated each August is down to the fact my long suffering Hortense keeps me from uttering a word about November 1972, a good thing as well. But in reality, I do miss the hair shirt a little.

The movie today was spot on wasn't it Horty old girl. You concur, well that is a turn- up for the books, normally you disgaree immediately. District9,odd title that but that really was the whole point wasn't it so Hortense, just referring obliquely to Apartheid actually. We grew up with that you see Horty, most of our younger readers would have no idea just how bad that time was. Nelson Mandela incarcerated in that dreadful prison, the man must be a saint the way he came out of there with so much dignity. Talking about saints Hortense, at Cocolat the lass who made our gelato today was a little humdinger wasn't she. Such large and generous scoops she gave, sublime wasn't it, of course I'm talking about the gelato Hortense, what else?

Sunday 2 August 2009

ink marks on a blank page Sun 2nd Aug

I have been away visiting family in another state,no, I don't take a laptop with me to keep up with anything. Neither do I Twitter,sms, except in emergency, hate calling folk whenever and where-ever, so if I should go places then I go silently. Not that I decry anyone the use of those ,or in fact any, forms of communication, just prefer not to use them myself. We have an unwritten law in my house, no-one rings here after 9-30 ,unless of course www3 has erupted and I am to be called up to go back in the navy.Do they take white haired old curmudgeons?

Possibly wouldn't go anyway, I never did get on with Navy life, far to straight backed for my liking,more fond of chaos me. Some funny ,or rather odd things have befallen I lately.Went in for an eye check up, a regular thing for me, my consultant said that I needed some immediate laser surgery.So that threw me al ittle but like the trooper that I am did as he asked ,the rub was though it took another 6weeks to find out if the laser had done its trick . Mother and the priests always told me that it would send me blind, well not yet . Y'all know me well enough by now to remember that I don't hold much truck with holy orders, prefer to take a more realist view on life. Should some of you, even all of you out there in blogsphere, take the more fundementalist tack then good for you, a belief system is fine it is just that I know why a jumbo can fly. The good folk at Boeing made it so, that's why.

My physical presence at the time of this epiphany was in a Catholic private school and at the time of the 'bolt from the blue' I was possibly about 10. We used to have a mass on friday morning and the bishop used to make a special effort to give us a rousing harange or three.
My normal thing was then,still is, to sit at the very front of any lecture, this day was no different. I think that I had worked out at a very early age that when sitting right in the front row you only ever got noticed once,answer corectly and sit quietly then for the rest of the time ,nobody bothers with you.
There I was,sort of awake but not, father was in full flight,when all of a sudden he straightened, raised both arms high in the air, the Lord will save the sinners he shouted.With this I woke with a start and there in front of me was fathers un-polished dirty street shoes and two missmatched socks. Shocked, I stood bolt upright and in full reedy ten year old voice cried out"Jesus wears dirty shoes and wrong socks" Naturally at this point the whole church, shocked by fathers stentorian voice fell deathly quiet so my piping little tinkle was heard all over,possibly into the street beyond. You might wonder at why I said that this was my epiphany, my fall from grace if you will. Think on this,for as a student in a Catholic school the priests and nuns were the living embodiment of Him, to us mere little pip-squeaky students anyway.To see father wearing dirty shoes and wrong socks was a revelation, he WAS human, just like Mr.Easterly the old drunky man who always wore wrong socks and whose shoes were never clean,God was only human y'see. Oh what a downward spiral from there folks, but yes it was, fun too I might add.
What did Billy Joel say,"Id rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints"

Please Hortense don't be like that,of course the good folk wont think I have horns or anything like that. Blog persons are well read intelligent people who have a balanced view on life. You don't think our leaders are like that Horty? you think that they are clutzes of the first order who should know better because we pay them heaps and give them lots of time at home.COuld be true old girl, this lot federally are not much good are they?Can you list one actual thing that they have done right since coming into power,all falls over doesn't it. The schools fiasco,broadband/building houses for the remote aborigines/ all students to have a pc/the health system , darn the list is not only endless, it's hopeless. You read the each house they are to build in remote areas for aborigines will cost $750k, that might be the reason they haven't built one yet. Not bad for a promise that no aboriginal family would be homeless by the end of 2009, there are about 3000 families need housing immediately too, work that out at $750k a house. Got an apology too Hortense, no Cocolat this week m'dear, got to take the car in for the 15k service and housework needs doing, next week then okay.

Wednesday 8 July 2009

ink marks on a blank page Thurs 9th July

Odd little things move me, snatches of song, a different bird darting in an out of a bush or flower, something someone or a child says...I stop , if I can, and try to fix that point of time in my mind.Then in a quiet moment, a reflect on the day time, reclaim that 'thing' from my recent past. I am particularly fond of Leonard Cohen(songs) for that, though one can hardly call them songs as he really doesn't sing as in speak with a golden voice.. They are for the most part histories that are linked with music and written in a poetic form. Music that forms the base of my listening though is classical, but anything that is played well and if it has words,the words will have to mean something profound .

Here in OZ there are lots of fine musos who can write good lyrics and great melodies that compliment the lyric. Many years ago I knew a young fellow,Doug Ashdown ,who wrote many wonderful songs and then at the height of his acclaim here went off to America and wrote a song called 'Winter in America'. Youtube it, as it still gets lots of plays and was a major No 1hit for Doug 30years ago. Whenever I play that song I see Doug on the back of his brothers Triumph motorcycle riding up to the Koffee Cup in Glenelg and then the brain clicks back to that part of life. Coming out of the clock radio tuesday morning as I got up was a song by a local group(melbourne) Little Heroes, called 'One Perfect Day'. Oh but I got some memory mileage out of that. We all have songs which will strike a bell in our collective memory stream, they have words which resonate and glue certain happenings into place, good or bad.Such was 'One Perfect Day', and it was in the throes of all that introspection that found me staring at the still water in my sweet spot on the river, that of the bend where the water rat has its domicile.

Looking at the reflections took me back to my childhood when on Remembrance day we would gather at the War Memorial and listen to the Dawn service. Pretty bog standard issue Memorial this was with a large cross, marble statues of warlike angels and in front a large still pool in which all was reflected. That's the key isn't it? a large pool in which everything was reflected.As a child I wondered why there was a pool there ,never asked my elders mind, perhaps I thought it was just such a straightforward unecessary question, one of those things that even a small boy should know without even asking. Must have been about my 3rd or 4th Dawn service when I was standing there wondering why we were there when I saw reflected in the pool a large bird flying overhead, an eagle or something similar.Reflected in the pool it flew the length of the still water then all of a sudden I knew why there was a pool there, basically as well I also figured out why we were there too.



So I stand at the bend in the river most morns, not if it is raining of course,I might be different but I do know to come in out of the rain, gazing at the reflections of life as it unfolds in Paradise. Y'see I can watch the goings on in the trees opposite,reflected so clearly in the River Torrens. Gaze undisturbed at the parrots ,lorikeets and magpies flying in and out of the crowns of the trees on the other bank.Squabbling,shrieking ,hooting at each other whilst all the time trying to get in their daily rations. Perhaps that is how my bird calling man started his calling,the walking up and down furiously waving arms and hooting might just have been a reflection of what he saw there too.Notice I said have been, a semantic reference to the fact I haven't seen him for ten days, most unusual,most disturbing. Shame that you, the viewers, can't see what I see in my living camera obscura, life unfolding undisturbed on a daily basis.Should you be like me ,rise early,move about doing your thing in the house then go out walking you see and hear different birds ,creatures doing their collective thing at different but similar times each day.

The earliest risers here are the noisy miners, then the magpies/ducks/ibis followed by moorhens/cooters/lorikeets -grass parrots . The honey eaters arrive about 9 or later depending on the warmth of the day. The din that these birds make is wonderful,no wonder that St.Saens composed his'carnival of the Animals'.



So that is the start of the robbi day, a reflection on what has passed and passes overhead. Hortense worries that I do a little more reflecting than I should, perhaps, but I love my life and to reflect back on even the bad bits is cathartic and food for my meagre soul.

Monday 6 July 2009

ink marks on a blank page Mon 6th July

Each morning ,rain or shine , I trundle out of the house just on dawn and go for a walk along a pathway that winds around the banks of a little river . This is not a iver in the majestic sense of the term but a wee small thing that is more a creek than river, although we like to adopt a position of grandeur and call it river. Mostly I take my camera and push said machine into the face of any of the wild things that inhabit the water way.Often I have managed to photograph some once in a lifetime pics, once a pair of Kingfishers fighting in mid air, the water rat going about its business, one that lives on my favourite bend in the river. A woodduck flew up in front of me, kept flying straight towards me at head height, I managed to get the camera up and fire off a few shots as it got close. Then there have been numerous times that I have seen rare birds scurrying about in the reeds and also times when I have seen where an Echidna has been.
Lots and lots of different trees that have bent and twisted into weird shapes, many beautiful parrots and my great mates the magpies. Crows are another favourite too, as when I lived way up in the desert country the only sound you could hear sometimes , apart from your own and the horses breath was the cawing of crows.They became good travelling companions even though clad as they are in funereal garb and are hurtful cruel creatures , when there is nobody else we cling to any companion do we not.

But my main exercise lately has been to look at trees, and just in this one stretch of our park where I walk there are at least thirty species. There are some that are indigenous to the area, others that are native but from other states but grow and prosper here, and there are those that are from other countries. One such is the pepper tree, not a genuine pepper of course but an exotic lovely tree all the same. A native of South America and Mexico actually and not at all indigenous to OZ although many grow here, and very well too. So much so they are regarded as a pest and a noxious weed . Go to any country town in OZ and you will find the pepper tree planted everywhere. There are quite a number in our park here, possibly some that were planted by the river as the early farms got established along the way, others of course sprouted from seeds ingested by birds. Many country butchers used the larger offcuts to make chopping blocks for quartering up their meat, they were much prized for that purpose in the dryer country towns.Relatively slow growing they do however have a long life and even though they are not native I personally have a very fond attachment to them. My first true love and I had a tree house in a massive big pepper tree that had a leaf spread that was all of forty feet across and so dense with branches that wept,drooped, down to the ground. I wrote a poem about her last year as she still figures in my thoughts after more than 50 years.The older trees grow galls on their trunks that we used to see 'things' in, then we would carve the gall to fit the image we could see, I shall try and do the same to the one pictured as I think that there is the hint of a baboon there on that large gall on the left (midway up). Perhaps one needs to be either a child or regressing toward that state to see it.Forgive me an indulgence, as I re-read this I thought once more about my pepper tree love, so will post the poem(again) although it concerns not pepper trees but a tidal creek and a very warm and languid Autumn afternoon (and I am overcome with the emotion of remembrance),but it is about love ( of which I am most fond).

oh shirley
pirouette of my childhood
redgold autumn hair glinting in dusty sun,
you laughed and teased
spun dreams with indelible lies,
and bade me love you
for I did

warm memories of forever summers
and hidden fumbles
etched your heart on my soul,
as the days spread open you blithely danced your schemes
whilst I segued my way through each tangled web ,
then waited in weary eagerness for night and sleep,
just another passage to the doorway of your history becoming my dreams

we watched the autumn dragonflies
as they flew joined in loves grace together ,
kissing still green water then once ,
you said we could do that
as all innocents have and will, we did

perhaps it was then ;
when the taste of your saltiness awakened lust
I knew that this was where life began
the child had left ,
we had lost the icon of youth,
summer magic became just a fleeting season
the days were simply numbered hours ,
sleep reclaimed the night
age overcame the reason

Saturday 27 June 2009

ink marks on a blank page Monday 29th June

Slightly damp this Am and I had to set off earlier than usual so attired myself suitably and swanned off into the gray dawn,tinged slightly pink by a weak, albeit slowly rising sun. Each morning I wander down to the bend in my river to try and get a pic of the water rat as it wends its way home from getting in the days shop,or whatever water rats do of a night.Mostly all i get to photograph is the ripples where said rat dives as it spies me or hears laboured robbi breathing as i lumber to view. Sometimes on the opposite bank a gentleman appears who marches up and down making bird calls. These aren't your everyday strangled childish attempts, like graggggh/hoot, they are full bloodied exact cries of parrot/crow/magpie/duck and other assorted winged creatures. Not all at once mind ,but done on seperate days and normally in various ways.As a parrot he runs about busy like,magpie calls, he is studied in movements etc etc etc, you get the picture, do you not? Sort of in costume if you may, he finishes the cry of the day and strides away at a majestic pace not to be seen for some days, I know that 'cos i go to that spot each day and he only appears about once a week,or in a busy birdy time ,twice. This day (saturday) he was there on the opposite bank uttering cries of great distress like a badly love sick moorhen, but a very very agitated one as he was pacing about most furiously,flailing arms and hooting quite loudly. I do not fear for my safety as I am firmly ensconced on the opposing bank and unless he actually can take on all the characteristics of a bird and fly, I feel quite safe, for myself.. Alas I do feel a trifled concerned for his condtion as with the addition of the moorhen cry he has gone through the entire species of bird on the river, what next ?

In truth I do know that we are all different and there but for the grace of god go I, and self will be the first to admit that his bird calls are very similar to the real thing, buuuuuuuutt?



Leaving all the birdy stuff to one side it would appear that an event which threatens to overtake that of 'the' bomb going off somewhere, has awoken the interest of all bar those who live in outer space. Do I refer to the passing of that icon of crotch grabbing, quite possibly I do. Will anything I say on the matter make one iota of difference, not an atom, so I shall just finish at this point.

There is not one person or thing on the planet that can be all things to all, so whatever floats yer boat.



Many little things grab my attention, sometimes I feel that life is so full of just so much wonderful happenings, of course I dont discount all the crapola, that would be stupid and I know that I am not that. At my time in life I can truly say that I understand most of what makes ME, as a functioning human, tick over. There is no burning desire within me to be something else, I mean to be George Clooney would be okay,if you were George Clooney but imagine how hard it would be to be you and George. Do you see what I'm getting at? See, you are you,okay?, but by some act of something then you can be you and then someone else, just how hard would that be.

I would have liked to have been Marlon Brando when he played in 'The Wild One' because at that time I rode with a motorcycle,call it? a gang okay, DD/MC. (Darlington Devils MC) .
I designed the insignia, the skulls head from the old Mercury Record label(our band did a 45 for them) underneath that a pair of crossed pistons. Yes I did read a lot of books about chivalry, and okay so some of went to my head.The head really was a bit empty back then, looking back it was all pretty awful and juvenile. Perhaps we were the forerunners of Hells Angels here, who knows, but perhaps not as we were pretty tame stuff compared to how they are now. Don't forget this was in 1958 and life was rebellion then for most at 16.The film itself took ages to actually play here in OZ as the local censors were afraid that it might corrupt us poor innocent antipodeans. But all that is well in the past, although it took ages to outgrow the love of riding fast motor bikes as I only sold my last one 7yrs ago. Reaction times just don't cope with a machine that can get to 100kph in 6.6 secs once you get past a certain age. I raced bikes ,tore 'round the streets madly for years and dare I say was an absolute lunatic on them yet never had an accident worthy of the name. fell off a zillion times, but nary one bad prang.



Yes Hortense I know what you are about to say, given half the chance I would be down at the bike shop in a jiff, but not true old girl. Know my limits now, although it would be nice just once,
just like our esteemed prime minister who went to a strip club in New York, just the once mind.
We have had a very strange week in the federal sphere,politics I mean. But the oddest part of the whole week was that the person who actually committed a really heinous affront to parliament was the Treasurer and because of the way the Government could spin the words and muddy the waters, he wasn't made to answer any of the allegations. The opposition handled the affair badly and missed an opportunity to show up the Government for just what it is,on spin cycle numero 9. Wnter here so Horty and I haven't had the nerve to head off to Cocolat, we managed a meal at the Greek restaurant just afew doors up , that was super .Generous plates and lovely food all for $41 for the two of us it's still possible to eat well here in Adelaide at a reasonable price. I feel like indulging myself a little so I am going to leave one of my poems behind. This just came off the cuff from a line someone else wrote that grabbed my fancy, it is like all my stuff autobiographical. I liked writing it as there are memories there that I will hold onto. Grazie per quelle ricordi.

the fish monger sold samphire

(before you steam samphire
wash it carefully under cold water,
then steam over a pan of boiling water
a couple of minutes,
serve with melted butter.)

we picked samphire
she and I,when we wore younger clothes
washed our pickings in the crystal waters
of Salt creek as the tide rushed in
then lay in the lee
of sandhills that were Camelot,
she as Guinevere,I Arthur
and we did as all innocents will

here, it was market day ,
samphire was legitimate
encased in furled paper

a fine morning
with a sometime quick breeze
replete with scudding clouds,
late sun lifted, then
warmed ones back as it should,
given the month
though my June is never warm
unlike this place,
where skeins of history and life mixed,
colours of a different palette

an empty book, artfully laid carelessly to table top
seemingly randomly left, although contrived
forgettable memoirs of a pop diva or some such
lunch arrived , followed by
small talk, brushing the edges of compassion
mixed with truth and regret
reflections that were etched into the glass of time
so it was left to the question,
half full or half empty?
I plumped for half full
but then optimism is a forte,
thus the day was sweet
as time spent like this should be
its memory forever mine
better than pieces of eight

June 27th 2008

Tuesday 16 June 2009

Ink marks on a blank page tues 16th June

Just by way of explanation some of you might have noticed my last blog was almost a month ago.That it is I have been a little slack perhaps could be noted, but then again y'all have no idea what is i have been up to.Y'see don't jump to hasty conclusion,could i have spent the last few weeks floating down the Nile in a felucca, searching for the l;ost tombs of Karnak? oh i does wish that were so, or might i had wended my merry ways up a still crystal blue fjiord in Norway. Cuts to the chase and tells you that all this time i have been at home doing not much of anything.
That being almost so I cannot tell a lie so inform you that all this time I have been away from you lot I flailed lens to the bone getting awesome pictorials for all to peruse.In between times I also worked in spot of laser surgery to my left eye,will know the outcome in 6weeks.

Well you do all know where I live as I'm forever banging on about the place and how lucky I am to li(o)ve here. Okay, so y'all live where you do because it is just perfect,understood all that and really you didn't have to say it,'cos where you live would be just right, three bears porridge an all. Doesn't matter where I have been and lived, my philosophy reads like this,once you know your way back from what passes for the corner store ,then you are home',isn't that just so though?On my morning walk I pass the same folk each day,the lady who wears the hoody and walks a maltese dog ,the fellow who rain hail or shine walks in flip flops and leads a huge mastiff, or rather it leads him.
They both say morning to I, as does the lady with the odd looking poodle thing,dog that is. The chap who rides towards me just after her, he nods his head in a sort of ,I want to be friendly but am peddling so can't stop expression. The man who follows about two minutes later, doesn't matter what I do,he never even rings his bell,just peddles on grimly as if I was something he'd rather wish not get stuck on his tyres. I would like to think that's because he wear little sunglasses like John Lennon even when it is dark or very dim with heavy black cloud, he always has his light on too.
That reinforces my theory of folk who wear sunglasses at all times, even 9o'clock at night, and I don't live in midsummer Norway either.They,(darkish glasses wearers) live in a type of jaundiced nether world where all is colourless/muted and amorphous, so to him peering through Lennon type haze I perhaps look like a golem or creature from a dank nightmare.Actually I kind of like that idea of I, might just run with that next dress up day.oh, by the by, the pic is of the sunrise this am.

Inded so Hortense old bean the locals are restless at this moment are they not.what with that lovely Mr.Costello giving Parliament the old heave ho after 20years was no real shock now was it.We all knew he only had until the 30th of this month because they have to bed in new canditate for his seat.
The journo's seem a bit out of sorts with our Prime Minister too, he was flavour of the month a while ago now it seems even they have got tired of the spin cycle always on fast forward. He had his face on the TV so much some even thought he was the new logo for that free to air station. Would it be dear Horty that you have been right all along about him, he really is a bit too good to be true. Then yesterday that old gangster fellow 'tuppence ' Moran got himself executed proper goodfellows style coming out of his favourite deli, seems rather ironic as well that today the police arrested his ex sister-in-law and her sister/boyfriend for setting up the hit and then doing it. Hollywood might well have written the script Horty, except it was real and tuppence got his come-uppence.
That movie we went to was abysmal,('a film with me in it' ),those actors should have been shot instead of tuppence. Just as well life doesn't always imitate art is my new motto, the gelato was great at Cocolat after though.

Saturday 16 May 2009

ink marks on a blank page Sunday May 17th

Seing as none of you were really interested in our Federal Budget 'cos it turned out to be a complete waste of time even having it on TV as the damn thing was such a negative and nothing thing, this then in the main is a blog about a wonderful little marsupial that we have here in OZ call a Bandicoot. But first I shall endeavour to give you a bit of background into our animals vis a vis yours.
One of the more endearing things about the names of animals here in the Antipodes is that none of the nomenclature of the little beasties sounds threatening or majisterial. Unlike those beasts of Africa ,Europe,Nth /South America and Asia we here in Australia don't having any screechy roary, mad things that will devour you in one bite. None of our nasties are like that,bit like us really, we do have nasty things that snap, poison and kill very quickly but all that is done with style and finesse.The taipan snake is the deadliest in the world,no roar at all, dead in 30 seconds, funnel web spiders creep beneath the sheets,one nip, goodnight you,not a peep out of it either.Box jelly-fish, get that down your speedos and look out, lets hope the beach resort is close to a hospital.Keep the trainers on when you go for a paddle in the waters of Queensland's Great Barrier Reef, that's in case you step on a stone fish,oops you didn't need that leg anyways.Ssssshhh though, notice just how quiet our deadliest things are? Unlike other countries .
Take TIGER for one, doesn't that conjure up a fierce, striped wild animal with enormous great teeth and very bad breath that will just be waiting in the wings to bite off a slice, of YOU? Then on the other hand we have here in OZ, the echidna, ooohhhhhhhhhh, how sweet, a little cutey pie thing that just curls up into a wincy little ball when frightened and only eats ants, those nasty critters that spoil your picnic, shame on you ants.Like the platypus, Echidna is a monotreme, an egg laying mammal. Next there is Rex the LION.Great hairy bit of a thing it is too, always poncing about the veldt like it owns the place, well you try and tell it to shove off then, see how you get on sistaaaahh.In the OZ corner we have the platypus, soft sleek furry type of creature that just burrows in the river bank for worms and stuff, doesn't even make a noise when doing so either and if frightened by any loudness will whip into its burrow where it hides until the nasty crashing about thingy has sloped off. Last but not least is the ELEPHANT, a monstrous great lump of a pachyderm that you cannot even make piano keys out of anymore, really good for nothing else than leaving massive huge piles of 'IT' all over the grass . Noisy sod of a beast too, trumpets away sixty to the dozen, then stomps all over the farmers maize crop,useless.
That is just Asia / Africa, space wont allow me to list all the yelling loud things from Europe along with the Americas .I have shown you just some of our nice little creatures who have no real obnoxious habits and finish up with a most personable lovely chappie who is a soft cuddly wuggly, that I myself relate to well.
We have the wombat, a pleasant sort of fattish fellow who is most congenial only coming out of his burrow at night making no sound as he goes about his business. He just eats, roots and leaves.
Enter my lovely little BANDICOOT.Not a monotreme like his friends the platypus and echidna just a common old variety marsupial and very shy, also where we stumbled across him, quite rare.To see him well you will have to enlarge the pic.
So there we have just some of our lovely sweet harmless denizens of the forest and glens of OZ, nice homely sort of a quiet likeable spot is OZ, but don't stand under the black wattles in midsummer as a pile of follow- me -caterpillars might drop down on you and their collective bites are deadly,no known antidote either.....sorrrrreeee, but I did warn you.

No Hortense I don't know the official name for those caterpillars, we used to see them on the farm. Remember when they fell on the horses neck and he could never race again? those little green ones that ball up together until one crawls out and they all go marching off in line.If you pluck the middle one out they all stop and ball up again until a leader just wings off , squash them and they give off a really punguent eucalypt smell. You do remember !, and that green stuff you could never get off your blouse so you had to throw it away, was a nice shirt that too.
Horty you didn't really like that Government minister who rabitted on about the infrastructure spending this morning, the Hon.Anthony Albanese . You don't like him, good, he sounded like a goat talking about billyons of dollahs then wouldn't admit to the fact that all the money he talked about wasn't actually going to be spent this year or even next,not for another 10 yrs Horty. What a load of old cobblers girl, to be quite frank m'dear I think he didn't really give a damn , just wanted to hear himself talk over the top of the interviewer.
Good deal that going to see 'angels and demons' friday then 'star trek' today, I does like a rollicking good movie or two.The gelato was at its best in Cocolat as well me lovely, in all, a top weekend

Sunday 10 May 2009

ink marks on a blank page Sunday 10th May

Our federal budget day looms on Tuesday, not that it will bring any surprises as most of the details have been carefully leaked to the media over the last few days. The treasurer is a chap who like the three main players in this Government appears to have completely mastered the art of talking whilst the mouth is full of marbles and under water at that. The whole of the cabinet can mouth the same mantra of rhetoric at warp speed, and really have been able to spin at force ten of the cycle. For some weeks now the top movers and shakers in Government have been flogging themselves ragged to sell just how wonderfully conservative and fiscally responsible they are, at the same time though they have been handing out cash to all and sundry like drunken philanthropists. Poor old OZ is going to be in debt forever and three days, the legacy of their largesse will be carried by the grandchildren of this generation.
Okay so I'm not an economist, who has to be when there is at this moment the country is saddled with largest national debt ever and theGovernment of the day can't even tell us, the people, how they will manage their way out of the fiasco. The only thing that they can actually say forcefully is "Why haven't the opposition been putting forward their policies". Got news for the Government, the opposition aren't actually wielding the reins of power, you lot are.
We are relatively well off here with a very stable banking system, there once was a lovely big surplus in treasury as well, we still have stuff to dig up that folk need and we beat the New Zealand team in the rugby test, so all is not so bad in the land down under.

Just made myself an espresso,cut a wedge of home baked fruit cake then sat down if front of the TV . Not much of note flickering away on the lcd, puerile offerings even on the public channel that I normally watch. So I turned to the commercial lot, even worse there. One of the commercial stations had a really slow cops and killers show,on one,football (oz style) another,a more juvenile USA cop shoot 'em up, last also very least was a chat show run by 30 something folk who all spoke in shouts with lots of face gestures. One segment on the chat thing was a young fellow who looked as though he had been dressed by the op-shop doing a voice over to a filmed piece on the philosophy of fate. The only thing interesting was the title , but perhaps I show my age here as all the 30 somethings laughed their collective heads off. Never like to get on stage about age either, you are each and everyone of you all sorts of age. I am 67, love being that, cannot wait to be 68 then 69 etc etc etc. My generation had all been married for years with children when we were thirty, not saying that was a good thing, but it was different times with a different set of values. Here in OZ we had lived an insular sort of life for years even as far up to the Vietnam war, the normality of life hadn't changed much for most of us until after that conflict had been and gone. Lots of young Aussie men and women had been to wars all over the place as far back as the Boer war but had come back here then just picked up as nothing much had happened. Perhaps it was the tyranny of distance from anywhere that was anything that isolated us, or was it just in the national physche that we were who we are and that made us different ,willing to stay the same. Folk from OZ travelled far and wide doing all sorts of things but they always came back and then settled back into being parochial Aussies almost as they stepped off the plane. Just about every jouralist who interviewd any visiting famous o/s person as they stepped off the plane asked this question,"What do you think of Australia?" There was a famous incident in Melbourne when Frank Sinatra was asked a bunch of really fatuous silly questions, he got very upset with a female journo then called all Australian female journo's "$20 Hookers" The local transport union got so incensed they refused to allow Sinatra's plane to take off. We really didn't appear to be very cosmopolitan at that point but life here moved on allowing us to gradually catch up with the world. So we are now at our place in time where on a per capita value we have almost as many murders per thousand as London, drink more beer than the Germans, become alcoholics as fast as the Russians, rack up credit card debt at a rate similar to Americans, have the same rate of obesity in major cities but thankfully we now smoke less per thousand than almost all Western Democracies. We have devoured the American way of life so well most of our children know more words of the American national Anthem than their own. A survey was conducted recently where the respondents related more to Barack Obama than their own Prime Minister. Hey, but who could blame them,that man is charisma. One thing that we must stop doing as a nation though is having our movers and shakers fly o/s, get sold the latest snake oil(that dont work), then come back here to install it to be the next great hope only to see the wheels fall off two days later. Grow up OZ, we can do our own version of snake oil!

Indeed so Hortense, news wise it is a mighty poor week. you rightly point out too m'dear that most of the budget has been leaked out. That might make a mockery of the journo's all getting locked in a room with no communications to read the budget papers, then when the doors get opened all run to file their stories at the same time, so as not to spill the beans scoop wise an all.
As if! Yes I do agree Horty, the treasurer is a sort of smarmy looking fellow at that, the sort who when he was at school would tell the teacher on you before you did stuff,then swear he didn't.
Sorry about the trip to Cocolat old girl, no movies this week either.Still Mothers day lunch was pretty full on, the call from daughter was great, life is good init.

Sunday 3 May 2009

Ink marks on a blank page Sunday 3rd May

Been away for a week or so,went to see daughter and her family in another state,Victoria that is.

Nice trip, but missed the goings on here in SA ,the rain and then more rain. All good that, it did pelt down too. Just in case y'all didn't know we are or were going through an almighty drought, worst for years so 'they' say. Mind you ,a lot, and 'they' said it as well, all down to climate change, 'they' said. Let me put you in the picture regarding the robbi thought on climate change. Notice I said thought and not the plural as I only ever have the one thought at a time. Of course it is all down to climate change, irrefutable reasoning that as it be the Earth is continually changing and has done for millenia. Humans have repeatedly polluted the Earth, been doing so for 40k years or more , the Australian aboriginals lit huge bushfires each year to burn off country to 'manage' it for their way of life. The burning off in some places altered the ecology of Australia and made the Eucalypt the dominant tree specie there. So much so that many indigenous shrubs and trees do not reproduce each season unless there is fire. We had been living on our farm for some ten years when a wildfire came through and after the next rains some two weeks later on the roadside verge across from the house there were three species of plant growing that had not grown there for ten years(acacia family). Some of our natives need smoke to germinate,Discaria pubescens and those in that family are just some. This blue ball we live on is in a continual state of flux and change,so why am I back on this hobby horse? as I seem to remember not so very long ago I waxed on lyrical in a similar vein.You may well ponder but there is a simple answer, not related to a senior moment either.
On the way back from Victoria I decided to make a detour and drive the coast road(Great Ocean Road) to a place in my state called Nelson. One reason was to see if I could get down on a beach called Dinosaur Cove( in Victoria), yup there are lots of nice fossils there to scrabble for if the tide is out that is. Hortense had never been to that part of the country as well but I do not equate Horty alongside fossils either.

I do have more that a passing interest in fossils and this particular place is a great example of the early Cretaceous period (100+m-y), bad luck robbi the tide was well in and as I only go 5'7'' in my shoes I would have been about a foot underwater. However the drive is nothing short of spectacular and for 400kms the scenery is just awesome. You drive into the bottom half of the Otway ranges which has some of the best stands of mountain ash forest in OZ and some really dense rainforest as well. The tree top walk (rainforest) on suspension bridges is one of those things that make your head spin, in an inspiring way. Coming out of the Otways the descent down to Apollo bay is breathtakingly beautiful and the town itself is friendly and just a great spot to lunch, plenty of top restaurants and a couple of good bakeries.

Drove on after lunch to the Twelve Apostles and then stayed the night at Port Campbell.

The Twelve Apostles have been carved out of the cliffs by wave action as well as the normal gyrations of the tectonic plates over millenia and are sculpted into amazing shapes,whilst the cliffs and bays are geological time capsules that show how the Earth has continually evolved over time. After Port Campbell comes the Bay of Islands and for me the most spectacular of sights and if the weather is on,that is a stiff onshore breeze blowing with the tide incoming the blow-hole there is a fantastic sight. We had a long drive back home on leaving the motel so although the day promised a good breeze we had to get there at 0700 when it was relatively calm. Good things happen when you least expect, walking up the track to the viewing platform there in front not 10mtrs away was a bandicoot. These little marsupials are very shy and rarely seen in daylight, especially here where there are normally lots of people. I managed to get quite close and took as many pics as I could before it scampered away in the undergrowth. Bandicoots have become rare there as they have no defenses against feral cats and foxes, they are also solitary animals and seem only to pair when they mate.
The drive back to Adelaide was about 540kms, a good road, no hills until Adelaide so I just put the cruise control on and we were home at 1830 that night. Got some top pics which I'm about to load on here now.

Hortense hasn't had a Gelato fix for a week plus so we must wend our way to Cocolat in the next day or so, a plan do you think? She is also a little more than miffed that I haven't been able to wind myself up about the Government at all, just far to busy driving and looking at OZ. There is a late news flash though. Surprise surprise, our federal Government is delaying and reducing the Carbon Trading scheme it earlier promised to get elected to one that is going to set the carbon price down to $10 a tonne and will also can the start date until 2011. Old cynic that I am there could also be a stop put on the thing altogether as the next federal election will have to be in 2010, is the timing convenient or what? The Global recession is a godsend for this Government, they have blamed everything from cold coffee to where do the flies go in winter down to it, but then as Hortense will tell you, I really am an old cynic.

Monday 20 April 2009

ink marks on a blank page Mon 20th April

I haven't looked through all of the old blogs( ink marks) to ascertain if at some time or other there was some waxing lyrical about where chez robbi is situated (Adelaiode, South OZ). Perhaps there is, but if so then it is back in the annals of and I shall refresh the memory buds anyway.Y'all just knew I'd say that now didn't you, ego tripper that I am. Adelaide being what and where it is folk who live here just mostly accept their lot. We live in a temperate clime, not enough rainfall at the moment but that might change. The city is ringed by hills, faces like most OZ cities, the sea. A great coastline as we are at the top end of a gulf (St.Vincent) plenty of great fishing ,water sports galore couple that with good weather with a smallish population then the recipe is set for a good mix. The population stands at about 1.2mill in the city/suburbs with around 800k living in the country.We have our unique problems of course, any homogenous lot do, but in the main we tend to get along with ourselves and others pretty well.

Adelaide was different in that it was specifically laid out by a surveyor,one Col.Light, settled by free men, plus land was divided up by a title which was unique in the world for its time. The Torrens title, named after the designer, gave unfettered access to a parcel of land in a suburb/subdivision, to the registered owner of that piece of land inviolate to be included on a Government register with the sole purpose of creating one title to ownership. This meant that it became a simple process to but sell or transfer land in one transaction and without re-surveying each time the land was sold. Boring? useful though.

Apart from this great method of flogging land we are reasonably well known for the wine we make, some of the best reds in the world and getting up there with the reds, lots of great whites too. To go with all this fantastic drinkable stuff there are about 800 or so pretty good restaurants in the city and suburbs with lots out in the country as well, especially in the wine region of the Barossa valley, Mc Claren flat,Limestone coast ,not to forget the Clare Valley. Not only do we make great wine, South Australia was the first to give women the vote, forward thinking lot are we not?

I have travelled over a lot of OZ, not all ,but a rather large portion.My own state of South Australia I have covered many times, lived in some of the really remote places. Even survived getting lost in the outback on a couple of occasions, so I know, admire,love it well. I have also been to many many countires all over the globe and will readily admit to being an Anglophile but whenever I return here just the smell of the place brings my legs to quiver. There is just something about Eucalypts that brings out the tears in me, which I suppose is why I live where I live.

Where I live is right on what is quaintly called the Linear Park at Paradise. My front door opens to the garden, a smallish road then the park, so on a water rushing day I can actually hear the river gushing along singing its song. The Linear Park starts at Athelstone right on the Hills Face and follows the Torrens River all the way down to the sea at Henley Beach, some 37kms of park. One reason it is called Linear is perhaps because the Park itself at the widest point would only be 750mtrs and on either side is a cement/bitumen path just wide enough for maintenance vehicles. As befits even the smallest of rivers such as the Torrens it trickles around gracefully with plenty of meander so there is actually a plethora of paths and parks for picnics,lovers to spoon,trysts to make and children to play. Funny quirky little things like a fully functioning suspension bridge such as one would see in a Tarzan movie and of course lots of Billy Goat Gruff bridges for children to look at trolls. We shifted from the farm then across to a Hills village then down here, so folk who knew us were at first horrified to think we would shift back to the suburbs after 30yrs of living like real people, until they saw the place that is. We ride our bikes on several different 5km rides each week, each morning at 0630 I walk up to the big road bridge on Darley rd and back, that takes about 35mins unless I get waylaid by taking pictures. Please don't think that I paint this word pic of my suburb because I want you to believe this is the creme de la creme of living , not at all , just suits me well really. I'm going to put a few pictures that I have taken this week up, you can judge for yourselves.

Oh Hortense I do know that not everything is perfect in Paradise. Look at all the trouble Mr Tom Koutsankanis got himself into as the Roads Safety Minister. Someone found out he had something like 58 tickets for speeding and running red lights etc and then told the newspapers. To make matters worse Horty he went on talk-back radio and said that he was speeding because he was very busy going to important meetings and the like. Tut Tut Hortense, very busy just didn't cut it at all with the good folk of Adelaide so he had to resign that portfolio. Shame isn't it that the honest people who actiually paid their fines, unlike him, they didn't get any reward as Tom did they, $148k per annum plus a driver , not bad for a young chap eh? We finishe the day off well did we not, took the g/kids off to Cocolat for some of their fine Gelato and that lovely young Barista chappie Thanth, made us a super little coffee. A great day !!

Wednesday 8 April 2009

ink marks on a blank page Thursday April 8th

Just a little bit of trivia to start the day. Some years ago Feng Shui got a bit of a roll on here, and possibly just about anywhere there was enough money to start up and run a Feng Shui business. Not that I am knocking it , not at all, as I have always believed that cultures such as the Chinese can teach us many ways to live a better life. Many years ago my maternal Grandfather had a great deal to to with the Chinese and worked in business partnership with them. He often told me of the degradation that Opium had caused the Chinese and laid the blame squarely at the feet of the East India Company and its practise of paying the Chinese in Opium and conversely enlarging the Opium trade. Australia played a part in this and an Australian diplomat and adventurer ,Morrison, was so incensed by the corruption and double dealing by some of his diplomatic colleagues he tried to stop this trade. He was also a bit of a wheeler dealer and womaniser himself and possibly was not quite the white knight he appeared on the surface. Grandfather painted such a dire picture of Opium dens, the joss houses, that I lived in fear of falling into one on the way past the local Chinese herbalist shop.
Have you ever been into a genuine Chinese herbalist? They are fascinating places and for a small boy with a large and vivid imagination simply worth all the trepidation of falling into an Opium den or Joss house just to visit. The shop we used (Mr Wu) was an Aladdin's cave full of dried shark fins, snakes and things in ceramic pots, stranges twisted roots, powders in large jars all to be weighed out on brass scales and wrapped in brown paper, the bill was totted on an abacus at lightning speed and written in a neat hand on strips of very light paper like a present day cash out strip. Mr. Wu, who appeared to be the apothecary, was a tiny man normally to be seen sitting on a high stool with a rattan back and gazing out of the window into the street as if he could somehow mesmerise customers into coming in. His parcels were always wrapped in brown paper and tied with a dark brown twine whilst his recommendations for taking the medicine were written both in Chinese and English on the left hand side with your name printed in large block letters on the right. Heavens knows why he bothered to write in Mandarin as to my knowledge there wasn't anyone in the family who could read the characters. If by any chance it was me who needed his potions and Grandmother couldn't come with me I would appear at Mr Wu's with a note from her, place it on the wooden counter top and repeat, in my piping little voice, exactly what Nana had told me. "Please Mr Wu my Nana says I am to ask you nicely to read her note and then ask me what is wrong" Whereupon he would leap from his chair ,read the note and then come around the counter and hold my chin in one hand and look intently into my eyes. He then would take my hands one by one and look very carefully at the back first then the palms,each of the fingers/nails. He would speak very slowly in measured very quiet tones "Missy Grace say you feel not well here,(poke) ahhhh so, that is feeling bad?"Sometimes he would look through my hair, take a few strands and disappear into the back of his shop. I could then spend time gazing in wonder at the various odds and sods on the shelves and hanging tied with that brown string all over the shop. What was I looking for, I never asked myself that, but quite possibly it was eye of newt, frogs tongues, bat wings or dried dragon blood, anything that a small boy might think he would find in a Chinese apothecary. Once, after reading a story about Brooke of Sarawak and the Dyak headhunters I ran to Wu's shop looking for dried and smoked human heads,alas none to be found, but it was fun to sneak into the shop when he was busy and look.


Back to Grandfather. Over years he made many Chinese friends and along the way developed a love of Chinese architecture, artifacts, including the Chinese way of doing business. He used to tell me that if you do 'good' business with a Chinese on the shake of a hand then years later you will be able to do the same business with his son and his son and their cousins and their cousins relatives. The Chinese played a big part in the development of early Australia as thousands of Chinese came here in the gold rush days to work the emerging goldfields and create business such as market gardens in the mining settlements. Melbourne, which was at that time the richest city in the world, became a hub for the Chinese immigrants as did the provincal cities of Bendigo and Ballarat. Many Chinese also landed in the port of Darwin and stayed there to make a vibrant and busy culture. Gowdowns became during that early period a feature of the wharves in Darwin and much trade was done in trepang,beach-de-mer,shark and pearl shell to many Asian countries. Grandfather was a part of all this and I have been fortunate in being able to keep some of the artifacts and antiques he collected or was given over his years in dealing with the Chinese traders.

For us who live in the Southern part of OZ sometimes we forget that at the tip of our country (Cape York) it is only 20 nautical miles to a foreign country which is part of Asia. In 2007 I stood right on that very tip and if you look at a map of OZ you will see that Cape York goes to a point. Well I can vouch for that as I stood right on that tip and looked down into the crystal clear water I could see the tip of OZ. The helicopter I had hired landed some 60metres from the actual tip saving us a three hour walk and a massive climb down (and back up)from the normal landing site. That time ,(hour or so) I spent there was in retrospect an extremely cathartic experience, as not many folk actually get to go there for to drive from the nearest settlement is ,if the road is passable, about a four hour trip and then you have at least another three hours of strenuous walking and climbing.

Yes Hortense I do know that our esteemed leader can speak perfect Mandarin and that he is great mates with everyone who is anyone in China. Me?, you also know that I have a few words of Mandarin, don't look like that, I do know that there are some of those phrases I could never use in polite society. Being friends with the Chinse is wonderful stuff Horty but I don't think that our Defence Minister should have had his business trips paid for by that lovely Chinese lady who seems to know every top General in the Peoples Army. He also rents an apartment from her when he is Canberra too, possibly gets a cheap deal I would think. Do you think he asked her what all the echoes and beeps / whistles were in every room whenever he discussed Government business? Oops! best I stick to stuff I know lots about, like the wonderful selection of Gelato at Cocolat we had Saturday morning after the moving picture show. Wasn't such a bad movie either, 'The Boat that Rocked', not Gone with the Wind or anything but it was great fun. Nope,I'm not going to apologise for leaping up from my seat and singing along with the EasyBeats to 'Friday on My Mind'. Oh, and I wont mention that you sang along with the Supremes either.
Great day it was Hortense and I thank you heartily for being the you that you are,"gonna have fun in the city, be with my girl she's so pretty,I'll be right tonight, toniiiiighhhht, for I've got friday on my mind, na nah nuhhnahhh na nah....i've got friday on my mind"